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Lolth
"Great Goddess, Mother of the Dark, grant me the blood of my enemies for drink and their living hearts for meat. Grant me the screams of their young for song, grant me the helplessness of their males for my satisfaction, grant me the wealth of their houses for my bed. By this unworthy sacrifice I honor you, Queen of Spiders, and beseech of you the strength to destroy my foes." - Rites of the Handmaidens Lolth is a Demon Princess that dwells in the Demonweb in the Abyss where she dwells in darkness surrounded by schemes and stretching webs. She has many connections to the god Pelor and is believed to have been his consort in Highvale but was exiled following the Dawn War when her plans to overthrow the Sun God were revealed. History The history of Lolth is kept by the elves of Tolas, though each give a different account of her life and role in the creation of the dark elves. Consort of the Sun It is believed that when Pelor built his domain of Highvale, he filled it with elves and other races that were gifted with immortality. The most beautiful of these was Lolth, who was known as Araushnee, and she dwelt with Pelor and advised him in the Dawn War, the conflict between the gods and primordials that would decide the fate of mortalkind on Tolas. One account holds that Araushnee was the daughter of Valheria, and the elf queen would divide her time between Highvale and Eschensil, with her handmaidens, the most beautiful of the elves of those lands joining her as she traveled the planes. Another story tells of Lolth being taken by Pelor as a hostage, with the Sun God having some feud with the Moon Goddess as both grew in power and influence their competing lights inevitably leading to conflict. In this tale, often told by dark elves, Pelor opposed the gift of immortality Valheria had bestowed upon her children, seeing it as a right those only gods should posses such a boon, and as punishment he took her favoured daughter and locked her in his tower, sealed away from the light of her mother and in darkness where the light of Highvale did not even touch her, changing her skin to be the dark colour now common among dark elves. A Tangled Web "To betray, you must first belong." - Drow Saying Following the Dawn War, as the heavens were being rearranged Lolth was exiled from the heavens and forced into the Abyss. While accounts differ, there is a general consensus that Lolth had some involvement in the disappearance or death of Valheria, and it was during this time that the drow fled into the Boneways, with their legends saying that they followed their goddess Lolth, whereas the account from Quel'Doran legend says they were forced underground by the other exiles of Echensil. Whether Lolth herself slew the mother of all elves is unknown, but since then she has been marked as a betrayer by the other gods, especially Pelor whose citadel of fire in the heavens punishes her followers, the drow, with its intensity. Following her exile it was discovered that many of the actions of lesser deities and powers that had acted against the gods following the end of the conflict were the machinations of Lolth. Creatures from Eschensil especially were found to have been influenced by the Spider Queen into rebelling against the gods, such as Malar, one of the first lycanthropes cursed with the madness of the Silver Veil. Blood War During the Blood War, when the Empire of Turath was invaded by the Abyss, the fellow exile Gruumsh was unleashed upon the world, and it is widely believed by elves that it was Lolth who aimed this power against the world. Lolth herself appeared during the later stages of the Blood War, fighting the pit fiend lords of the Empire that had threatened to enter the Abyss. When she arrived in the Material Realm she manifested as a massive arachnid, she reveled in the power the chaos of the war was creating and was only forced back into the River Styx when the sun rose, its power weakening her enough to turn the tide in the devils favour. Description Lolth takes many forms, favouring that of a beautiful drow woman in silk cloth that features many spider and web motifs. When in battle Lolth takes the form of a great arachnid with eight limbs and colossal unblinking eyes, said to be capable of destroying entire cities in this form, it was seen during the Blood War when the Spider Queen emerged from the River Styx to fight the pit fiends of the Empire of Turath. While she is herself a threatening figure, she much prefers to send others to do her biding, granting them boons that both lets them carry out her will and gives her something to hold over them. Relationships Lolth is a reviled figure in many faiths, seen as a betrayer and false leader of those elves she took from the embrace of Valheria, except in the drow religion where she is seen as the one who saved them from enslavement by the gods that would have them shackled to their whims. Valheria For more on this, see here. Lolth is considered to have been the daughter of Valheria and as far as the ancient accounts go they loved one another as parent and child. It is strange then to conceive of a reason as to why Lolth would slay Valheria, if that is what even happened. Pelor For more on this, see here. Pelor is believed to despise his formed consort and advisor, the Hateful Sun blinds and dazzles her followers the drow and keeps them hidden underground. Other Demon Princes Lolth has many contacts in the Abyss and sends her spies to watch the other layers and their denizens. She has many plans in motions and her paranoia crafts complex plots that connect the many actors in the Abyssal Planes to one another without their knowledge. She is a keen manipulator of Gruumsh who despises her and all elves, but often falls prey to her clever traps that drives him towards her goals. She avoids conflict with the other Demon Princes and prefers to remain in the centre of her layer, the Demonweb, sitting in the middle of a complex nexus of leylines, corrupted filaments, and spider webs that stretch across her realm, warning her of intruders and allowing her minions to be quickly deployed to bring her prey to her. Followers Lolth has a number of followers across the surface world, though the majority of them worship in secret, with only those that dwell in the Boneways openly devoted to her and her dark teachings. Court of Spiders The dark elf cities in the Boneways are ruled by matrons, elder elven women that have made pacts with Lolth herself to keep their power in society. Such bargains come with a price in the form of sacrifice and dark arcane rituals. Handmaidens The Handmaidens of Lolth are those dark elves that served their mistress in the the days before she was a Demon Prince, when she dwelt in Eschensil with their mother Valheria. There are believed to have been eight of them but over the years their have become corrupt entities, splitting into many fragments as the demons known as yochlol, who serve as the eyes and ears of Lolth in her realm and are sent to witness rituals performed in the name of the Spider Queen. Demonweb The Demonweb layer of the Abyss takes the form of a huge inverted cone of webbing filled with spider fiends and demons that skitter across its lines of sticky web to hunt for interlopers or lesser fiends to torment. At the edges of the web are the craggy rocks and ledges that encircle the realm where the borders to other layers of the Abyss meet, fiends and other travelers being lured into the Demonweb where they become prey to the cruel creatures that dwell there. The Tangled Palace At the centre of the great web, the spider queen rules over a twisted realm of deceiving routes that all lead back to her great fortress, said to be a a tower of chains stolen from the realm of Highvale that sits atop the back of a great spider its body lashed together by the now corrupted metals of the sun to snuff out all light and smother the surrounding area in darkness known as the Tangled Palace. Category:Demon Category:Abyss Category:Fiends Category:Elf